matthewreillyfandomcom-20200214-history
Trials of the Super-Ancients
The Trials of the Super-Ancients are the five tasks assigned by the Super-Ancients Beings to test the worthiness of humanity as a whole. History Early History During the height of their technological age, the Super-Ancient Beings made many discoveries of celestial phenomena, such as the Tartarus sunspot, the Dark Star and Hydra galaxy. They also came to determine the inevitable end of the universe and its rebirth in a constant cycle known as the Omega Event. Their research into each of these phenomenons led them to discover ways of averting the dangers they posed, creating technology that could allow them to survive unscathed, even managing to devise a way to survive through or prevent the Omega Event. Though they were able to endure for a long time, the Super-Ancients were aware that even they would not exist forever, and that even after they were gone from the Earth there may yet be intelligent life. From there, they decided to make the survival of the Tartarus rotation, repelling of the Dark Sun, and the diverting of the Hydra galaxy part of a series of trials to determine if this new sentient species were worthy of existing (and being preserved through the Omega Event). The Super-Ancients also devised two other trials for the next species to endure; the Trial of the Cities and the Trial of the Mountains. To make the completion of the trials all the more appealing, the Super-Ancients decided to offer rewards for those who completed them, notably knowledge and power-based rewards. Some time after the rise of Homo Sapiens, the Super-Ancients gave the bulk of the tools and knowledge needed for the trials to a group of these early humans so that their descendants could be prepared for when the trials began. These humans, later coming to call themselves the the Four Legendary Kingdoms vowed to maintain the Super-Ancients' knowledge and tools for completing the trials. Over the millennia, however, some of the components for the trials, such as the Golden Capstone, and the Pillars and Guidestones of the Machine, and much of the information for the final two trials, would become lost over the years. The Kingdom of Underworld, however, kept its word to maintain the necessary knowledge for the third trial. The Four Kingdoms were also gifted with the Three Immortal Weapons of the Fourth Trial, which they shared among three of their Kingdoms, and discovered the locations of the Three Secret Cities. The Four Kingdoms assigned three men to watch over each one, who would come to be called the Trismagi, to ensure they were not disturbed before the trial. However, only the Kings of each Kingdom (and few of their closet advisers) became privy to the knowledge that a sacrifice was needed for the trial's overall success, and it was decided that it was the Oracle of Siwa's responsibility to be the "Supreme Initiate" who sacrificed their life. A few years prior to 2570 BC, before the Golden Capstone was divided and scattered, the the Old Kingdom of Egypt used it during the Tartarus rotation that occurred before the one scheduled for the Age of Trials. Similarly, since 10,000 BC, the Four Kingdoms held the Great Games of the Hydra three times during preliminary passes of the Hydra galaxy. Upon the completion of the three Games, the Mysteries, information for the final two trials, would be imparted upon the one who stood in the obelisk of the mountain-antenna, even though Kings who received the Mysteries would not need them in their eras. The last of these Kings, Zeus, made some notes regarding the final two Trials on a papyrus in the Word of Thoth, including the prerequisites for the former Trial's completion and the punishment for failing. Meanwhile, the information regarding the Omega Event was primarily maintained through the ages by the Catholic Church's Omega Group. Towards the end of the 20th century, some of the Four Kingdoms, knowing that the Age of Trials would begin with the next Tartarus Rotation in 2006, began preparations to undertake the trials, not only out of desire to see humanity through the Omega Event, but to gain the rewards that the Super-Ancients had offered for completing them. People such as Max Epper would deduce the importance of the tasks of the first two trials, even coming to realise the existence of the Super-Ancients, but were unaware of the full scope of the trials. Seven Ancient Wonders In the week leading up to the day of the Tartarus sunspot's next alignment with Earth on March 20th 2006, several rivaling parties began seeking out the pieces of the Golden Capstone to use to prevent the polar ice caps from melting and causing sea levels to rise. Once the Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force claimed the last piece of the Capstone, Marshall Judah led them to the Great Pyramid of Giza to re-erect the Capstone and perform the ritual of power. Before the ritual began, the Coalition of Minnows team began fighting back, and during the conflict the Tartarus sunspot aligned perfectly with the Pyramid, causing a concentrated beam of the sunspot's energy to strike the Capstone. Judah's performance of the ritual of power was upset by Alexander escaping from the Capstone's recess before it was completed, but Mustapha Zaeed soon began performing the ritual with Lily as his sacrifice. As the ritual was completed, the Tartarus sunspot's energy was concentrated further through the Capstone's crystal array as it pierced Lily's heart, and thus Tartarus's excess heat was nullified and the first trial was completed. With Jack West Jr having switched Zaeed's Saudi Arabian soil for Australian soil beforehand, the reward for completing the trial, 1,000 years of power, was granted to Australia. Between Seven Ancient Wonders and The Six Sacred Stones After the completion of the first trial, Epper gave his full attention back the Dark Sun project he had pursued his whole life, and began working with Yobu "Tank" Tanaka and Lachlan and Julius Adamson to try and predict the approach of the Dark Star and prepare a mission to restore the Machine. At the same time, other parties began making their own preparations to complete the Dark Star's return trial, if only to obtain the Pillars' rewards. Wolf and the CIEF allied themselves with China's Mao Gongli and the Saudi spy Vulture to find the Machine components and divide/share the rewards. The King of the Kingdom of Land, Vladimir "Carnivore" Romanov, meanwhile, decided his efforts would be better suited to piggybacking on the efforts of his rivals, and had his cousin Iolanthe Compton-Jones inserted into the CIEF-China-Saudi alliance. The Six Sacred Stones On December 1st 2007, Wizard and Tank entered a chamber beneath Witch Mountain, where they found several carvings relating to the Machine, including one that noted that the first Pillar had to be set in its Vertex 100 days before the Dark Star's return, which was a little over a week from then. Their subsequent capture by Mao and his men set off a chain of events that led Jack and the Coalition of Minnows team to discovering the return of the Dark Sun and the necessity of restoring the Machine. The trial to repel the Dark Star began in earnest as the Coalition team ventured to the first Vertex beneath Abu Simbel with the cleansed first Pillar and set it in place atop the inverted pyramid. However, as soon as the Pillar was placed, their rivals' various attempts to claim the Pillar or destroy the Firestone resulted in the mission to restore the Machine taking on a darker turn. Indeed the Japanese Blood Brotherhood's mole in the CIEF, Switchblade, very nearly derailed the success of the second trial when he attempted to drop the second Pillar into the abyss below the inverted pyramid. It was only Jack's last-ditch effort to catch and place the Pillar that allowed for further opportunity to continue the mission to restore the Machine. The Five Greatest Warriors With nearly three months until the time to place the third Pillar, the Coalition team and the CIEF and its allies took the time to research the location of the outstanding Machine components, with the former focusing on the Five Greatest Warriors. During the mission to place the third Pillar in the Hokkaido Vertex, Jack's team and Wolf's CIEF force reluctantly agreed to a truce to place the Pillar due to the opposition the Japanese presented them. Once the Pillar was set, they went their separate ways, only to all end up captured by Carnivore's forces, the Russian royal having decided to make his move. To the imprisoned players in the second trial, Carnivore announced his plan to manipulate all of them into working for him and providing him with the Pillars and their rewards. With their reluctant compliance, the Coalition team laid the fourth and fifth Pillars at their respective Vertices, while Mao, Vulture and Scimitar were sent to uncover the sixth Pillar. With only one Pillar needing to be set in place to complete the Machine's restoration, Carnivore made his play to claim the final Pillar from Jack and his team (who had retrieved it instead of Vulture's group), and proceeded on to the sixth Vertex on Easter Island. During the confrontation there, Jack killed the Russian royal and placed the Pillar with Lily, performing the final ritual that successfully repelled the Dark Star and completed the trial of the Machine. Between The Five Greatest Warriors and The Four Legendary Kingdoms During the eight-year interim that took place between the second and third trials, the Four Kingdoms began their preparations for the third trial, grooming or selecting candidates who would take part in the fourth Great Games of the Hydra. Around September 2016, the observatory in the Underworld which tracked the movements of the Hydra galaxy detected that it was close enough to Earth, and unlocked the Star Chamber vault with the Golden Spheres locked inside, signalling to the Four Kingdoms that the third trial was upon them. By November, each King of the Four Kingdoms and some members of their houses brought their Champions to the Underworld, who had fitted in their necks a gold gemstone that marked whether said Champion would earn the Spheres in accordance to the ancient rituals, ready to begin the third trial. The Four Legendary Kingdoms As the Great Games were underway, during the banquet hosted by Hades between the Fourth and Fifth Challenges, Ricardo Mendoza explained to Jack how the re-erecting of the Golden Capstone, the rebuilding of the Machine and the diverting of the Hydra galaxy were the first of the five tasks set by the Super-Ancient Beings to test life on Earth. Furthermore, Mendoza noted that upon humanity's completion of the trials, the Ancients would share with them the knowledge of how to prevent the next Omega Event. Following the Fifth Challenge, the first five Golden Spheres were set in place within the Summit Temple atop the antenna-mountain, raising the obelisk and completing the first phase of the trial. After Jack won the Great Games, the remaining four Spheres were set into place, thus initiating the obelisk to send out the signal to divert the Hydra galaxy and provide Orlando Compton-Jones the opportunity to receive the Mysteries. While the signal to instruct the Hydra galaxy to change its course was successfully sent out, Jack kept Orlando from receiving the Mysteries that would make completing the remaining two trials easier. Anthony "Hades" DeSaxe feared that completing the remaining two trials would be far more difficult, but Jack assured him that they could find the necessary knowledge to complete the trials together and thus save humanity from the Omega Event. Orlando and Mendoza, however, set out to begin preparations to complete the next trial on their own. The Three Secret Cities A few days after the conclusion of the Third Trial, the mission to begin the Trial of the Cities began in earnest. As he joined Jack's team in heading to his New York apartment to obtain the tablet of the Altar of the Cosmos and the Helmet, Hades explained what he knew regarding the Three Secret Cities and showed them the Zeus papyrus. However, Orlando, Mendoza and Sunil Malik retrieved the artifacts first, and, already in possession of the Sword, Orlando set Malik the task of locating the long-long Mace before setting out for the Cities. Later Jack and Lily viewed a full rubbing copy of the tablet, discovering that allies were needed at all of the Cities since activating the first City, Thule would activate the Guardians of all of the Cities. As Orlando was unaware of this and in a hurry to complete the trials, Jack's team set about trying to locate all of the Cities and the Trident so that they could help to ensure the Trial of the Cities wasn't failed. Indeed, Orlando prematurely initiated the trial at Thule, which left Mendoza and his Swiss Guards caught between the Bronze and Silver Guardians. Meanwhile, the Trismagi Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster and Dion DeSaxe had the Knights of the Golden Eight capture Lily for the Oracle of Siwa's role of sacrifice on the Altar of the Cosmos. After Jack's team uncovered the locations of the Cities and recovered the Mace, they made their way to Thule, Ra and Atlas to help empower the Weapons. After Jack and his people used the Weapons to get past the Guardians, they reached the inner vaults of the Three Cities and empowered the Weapons, only for Sphinx and Orlando's people to take them and make their way to the Altar of the Cosmos. As the Kings of the Four Kingdoms gathered at the Rock of Gibraltar for the sacrificial ceremony to finish the Trial of the Cities, Sphinx arrived with Lily and initiated a coup by stabbing Orlando with the Sword while Mendoza killed the Kings of Sea and Sky. Setting the stone tablet in the sacrificial pool and closing Lily inside with the empowered Mace and Helmet, Sphinx proceeded to complete the Trial by stabbing Lily in the heart with the Sword. With the Oracle's death, the Trial of the Cities was successfully completed. Trivia . Category:Events Category:Seven Ancient Wonders Category:The Six Sacred Stones Category:The Five Greatest Warriors Category:The Four Legendary Kingdoms Category:The Three Secret Cities